It is desirable in many instances to obtain some form of immediate visual impact. This can be readily obtained through television, video productions, motion pictures, and the like. Unfortunately these media are not susceptible of the many and diverse uses of print media such as portability, compactness and the like because they simulate reality through the use of motion pictures. However, products involving the print media have not been changed in any significant extent for years.
Enhanced realism has been tried through the use of colorful packages and covers such as those found on magazines and books, the use of holography on trading cards, and in other ways. Considering trading cards as an example, premium type cards have been developed in recent years which use high quality lithography. Some cards are printed on glossy cardboard stock with crisp color photographs of a player on the front and back. Other products, such as postcards, have included 3-D pictures, holograms and embossing to enhance the realism of the pictures.
There are many applications where there is a need for something to provide a sense of enhanced reality. High quality photography, 3-D photographs, and holography to some extent partially achieve this objective; however, many of the past attempts have been viewed only as novelties and have, in fact, reduced the realism of the scene. For example, a trading card display case manufactured by TRI Cards, has been promoted and includes cut portions of cards layered with bits of wood on top of a base card and off-set in an enclosure case made of plastic material to attempt to make the player appear to be moving. Scheyer, U.S. Pat. No. 3,868,283, discloses an attempt to provide a three-dimensional picture, not a trading card, in which portions of a photograph are spaced away from a background by a lightweight piece of spacial material. It is a relatively bulky item compared to the usual thin and flexible trading card, and only appears to be a novelty item due to the unnatural placement of the subject versus the background. The viewer can easily determine that the object is not realistic by viewing it from a different angle than 90.degree. and by seeing the edges.